Chapter 15
Godzilla and Rodan are two undisputed giants of the Japanese Kaiju Eiga genre that remain the greatest of all Toho’s rubber-suited creations from the 1950s. But two features dating from, respectively, 1955 and 1958, were never afforded the same commercial coverage as Godzilla and Rodan — Godzilla Raids Again and Varan the Unbelievable. Not screened in the United Kingdom until the early ’60s in heavily doctored forms, these films have long been overlooked by fans used to seeing Godzilla in all his various later incarnations, unconscious of the fact that a distant cousin and lizard-like relative lurked around the corner. Now that original uncut Japanese versions have become available on the market for both pictures, Toho’s least-seen monster flicks deserve reappraisal. Granted, they may have their faults, but both remain integral, important entrants in Toho’s extensive back register of classical monster movies.
Following the worldwide success of Godzilla, Toho rush-released Godzilla Raids Again (Gojira No Gyakushu) in 1955 with a different director (Motoyoshi Odo, or Oda on some prints), different composer (Masaru Sato) and a different-looking Godzilla; smaller in build, sporting a newly designed head. The cast consisted of three main characters: flying partners Hiroshi Koizumi and Minoru Chiaki, with attractive Setsuko Wakayama supplying the female interest, all working for a fishery company in Osaka. On the lookout for bonitos (tuna), Chiaki’s plane develops engine trouble and he’s forced to land on barren Iwato Island. His colleague comes looking for him and lands alongside, the pair building a fire to stay warm. Then a roar is heard. Godzilla appears above a rocky ridge, in battle with another monster Angurus and, after the fight, the enemies tumble into the sea. Back in Osaka, scientists blame the hydrogen bomb for reawakening both monsters (an Ankylosaurus and a “second” Godzilla) and a state of emergency is declared. Footage of Godzilla destroying Tokyo (from the first film) is screened to the authorities as a warning of what Osaka might expect should the creatures get too close for comfort. Godzilla enters Osaka Bay 26 minutes into the picture, planes drop flares to steer him back into the ocean but when escaped convicts crash a stolen petrol tanker, the blaze attracts the monster and he returns, along with his spike-backed rival. After a titanic tussle in which Osaka is reduced to burning rubble, Angurus is defeated and Godzilla heads back out to sea. He is then located on another snow-covered island. The air force bombs the island and the monster is buried under an avalanche of ice.
Compared to the mighty Godzilla, the follow-up seems colorless and sluggish. Sato’s conventional, jaunty music jars with the more serious monster action, while Odo’s static directorial style is simply content to allow actors/monsters to wander into shot. The film plays in three segments: the opening sequence, from protracted scenes of Chiaki and Koizumi flying over the ocean to the discovery of Godzilla and Angurus; the middle section, showing the combatants trashing Osaka and the overlong 18-minute finale depicting the bombing of the island and Godzilla’s death. The special effects are impressive in that the “let’s wreck the model city” was perfected by Toho yet let down by an absence of a stirring musical soundtrack. With lack of pace both in the opening and closing segments of Godzilla Raids Again, the only thing to hold the interest is the destruction of Osaka; this overall slackness probably accounted for the film’s poor showing at the box-office. Such was Godzilla Raids Again’s critical and commercial failure that the producers of the first Godzilla movie took out a lawsuit against the picture’s makers, the main reason for adjusting the title on subsequent Japanese and American prints — Warner Bros., who distributed the Americanized version outside of Japan, were unable to secure the rights to the Godzilla name because of this lawsuit, hence the switch to Gigantis.
The revamped Godzilla Raids Again surfaced in England in 1963 as Gigantis the Fire Monster (produced by Paul Schreibman in 1959), on a double X-rated bill with The Gargon Terror. Five minutes shorter than the original’s 82 minutes, Gigantis kicked off with an atomic bomb explosion and footage of “deadly missiles and rockets” to explain the monster’s manifestation; it cut down on the numerous fishing scenes, trimmed the prolonged climax by a couple of minutes and, in the final analysis, emerged a better, all-rounded feature film. Star Trek’s George Takei narrated (as he would do in Rodan) and no American actors appeared to throw a monkey wrench into the works. All references to the name “Godzilla” were excised from the print (even on revised versions that still contained the Godzilla Raids Again title!). Newsreel footage of Godzilla trampling through Tokyo shown to scientists was augmented by views of prehistoric life filched from other productions, stress laid on the fact that Gigantis (or Gigantus) was a “Fire Monster,” with a ridiculous (and totally untrue) statement that dinosaurs hibernated underground during the Jurassic Age because of atmospheric radiation and lived in a world of fire. Also ludicrous was the dubbed speech (“Oh look, the monster’s coming.” “Gigantis is huge, he will destroy everything.”) and the fact that Angurus sounded like an off-key air-raid siren. On the plus side, Sato’s inappropriate music was replaced by American producer Schreibman who utilized snippets of Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter’s title and incidental scores from Kronos and It! The Terror from Beyond Space, beefing up the action no end.
The tightened-up Gigantis the Fire Monster was much more of a success than it had been in its previous existence, even if it was only shown in independent cinemas, and, along with Rodan, is a rare example of necessary American editing triumphing over Japanese sloppiness. The same cannot be said of what American distributors Jerry A. Baerwitz and Jack Marquette performed on Varan the Unbelievable (Daikaiju Baran): The uncut Japanese original, now uncovered for the first time in pristine black-and-white and widescreen format, is a lost Toho masterpiece; the re-edited version is cinematic butchery taken a step too far.
Varan was released in England in 1964, teamed up with The Demon Doctor (The Awful Doctor Orlof). Baerwitz’s severely cut 1961 rehash had Myron Healy and his Japanese wife (Tsuruko Kobayashi) holed up on an island, experimenting with a desalination chemical on a lake supposedly inhabited by a legendary monster feared by local natives. Thirty-two minutes into the movie (which only runs for 70 minutes in its shortened form) Varan appears (“Nothing can stop it. Bullets, shells — nothing!” screams an officer). The creature razes a village to the ground, is blasted by the military and attacks Oneida City. It then swallows a quantity of Healy’s chemicals, lowered on parachutes, and falls onto a lorry loaded with explosives which blow up. Feeling groggy, Varan wades back into the ocean, presumably to die, although this isn’t made clear, Healy stating at the end that, “Whether it’s dead or alive, we won’t have to worry anymore.” A talkative start, clumsy editing, erratic continuity and crass dubbing notwithstanding, Varan, ragged-looking or not, was a hit with monster movie lovers in the early ’60s; the film was in widescreen, the Toho effects were excellent (although darkly lit) and Varan himself was a corker of a monster. To be honest, punters of the time wouldn’t have had the patience to sit through a Japanese-speaking horror flick with English subtitles. Varan in its chopped-up guise was what Western audiences were served and to which they became accustomed, appeasing their appetites, warts and all.
But now we are presented with the opportunity to see for ourselves what Inoshiro Honda and his team envisaged in the first place, the original conception of Varan. At last, we have confirmation that what we heard about many moons ago concerning the superior uncut Japanese edit being an entirely different beast to the truncated mishmash we sat through in 1964 turns out to be true. First released as Daikaiju Baran in 1958, Honda’s forgotten classic comes in at 87 minutes, 17 minutes longer than the emasculated Varan. Watching it is like being subjected to another movie altogether, so let’s contrast the two, using the titles Baran for the original and Varan for the Americanized travesty.
Out of Baran’s opening 48 minutes, only around nine minutes of original Japanese footage has been cannibalized and included in Varan’s first 45 minutes. Baran opens with a shot of a gleaming rocket, pressing home the atomic significance in relation to the unfolding events. In the foothills of Northern Japan (the Tibet of Japan, not an island!), a gargantuan reptile lurking in a lake (the God of Baradagi) is worshipped as a deity, similar to King Kong. Akira Ifukube’s marvelous music underscores the imaginative Gustave Doré–type scenic views of the lake, mountains and jungle backdrops to set the right mood. Two scholars searching for a rare species of Siberian butterfly in the Tohoku area hear a deafening roar and are killed by a rockfall, caused by something unknown. Aresearch party (two men, one woman) investigates the deaths and comes under native suspicion, the leader of the tribe telling the trio to return to where they came from (“You cannot explore. Goback!”). Twenty minutes into the film, Baran emerges from the lake, walking both upright and on all fours (“That’s an oversized lizard! It’s unbelievable!”) and smashes the native village to matchsticks. Back in Tokyo (not Oneida City as in Varan), scientists meet to discuss the monster’s origins (a species of Varanopode) and the military plus news reporters converge on the lake that is shelled with chemicals. Baran, enraged at the disturbance, leaves his abode, comes under bombardment, traps two of the party (lovers Kozo Nomura and Ayumi Sonoda) in a cave and then, with the forest ablaze, flies off on membranous tissue situated between its four limbs. Virtually every scene included in this long opening passage never made it into Varan; the complete butterfly scenario was omitted in favor of a specially filmed 30-minute sequence showing Healy speaking nonstop about his methods of removing salt from saline water. And to underline the ruthless (and thoughtless) editing: In Baran, at 22 minutes, the village leader dies, followed by, at 42 minutes, the monster menacing the scholars in the cave. In Varan, the leader perishes at 36 minutes, and only six minutes later (as opposed to Baran’s 20 minutes), Healy and his wife are inserted into the cave shots, the scholars (termed feature writers in Varan) having disappeared. So 14 minutes of monster footage has been removed in the modified version from this sequence alone. Moreover, in Varan, the monster is never seen airborne and his roar sounds strangely muted.
To continue with the original, Baran makes his way toward Tokyo (not, as stated, Oneida City) and, following several confrontations with battle cruisers (many of these scenes don’t figure in Varan), begins a night attack at 69 minutes. In Varan, at the same point in time, the movie is virtually done and dusted, the attack having lasted 11 minutes against the original’s 15 minutes. Professor Akihiko Hirata (he invented the Oxygen Destroyer in Godzilla) has designed an experimental bomb and needs to detonate it inside the monster. In Varan, the beast staggers into the sea but whether it lives or dies is left open-ended; in Baran, it also staggers into the sea (after swallowing several of Hirata’s bombs and toppling onto the lorry containing explosives) and blows up, almost certainly dead, leaving the cast standing on the shore, mourning its passing.
Varan the Unbelievable in its original cut is classic, well-mounted Toho, leisurely paced at first, the involved butterfly plot punctuated by well-staged monster antics, the acting a little less affected than the norm, the direction assured. Baran/Varan rampaging across Tokyo’s airfields doesn’t disappoint (okay, the model tanks are fairly obvious, as are the wires connected to the jet planes, but these are distinguishing features of Japanese monster effects and one almost becomes immune to them) and the finale is cohesive rather than the muddled mess apparent in Baerwitz’s hatchet job. Photographed in the darker tones that catapulted Godzilla to godly status and in TohoScope, this X-rated ’50s Japanese monster opus personifies Honda and his technicians’ much-vaunted craftsmanship; it’s a thrilling, well-crafted delight, more so when viewed against Toho’s child-friendly, A-rated creations in color that proliferated during the 1960s. Yes, it was well worth the long wait — Daikaiju Baran counts as one of the company’s finest, more adult, moments.